1193
Steam Hardware [new Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and VR headset Steam Frame, coming in 2026]
(store.steampowered.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2025
1193 points (98.9% liked)
Games
43355 readers
1507 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you're submitting before posting to see if it's already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don't share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don't want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
Authorized Regular Threads
Related communities
PM a mod to add your own
Video games
Generic
- !gaming@Lemmy.world: Our sister community, focused on PC and console gaming. Meme are allowed.
- !photomode@feddit.uk: For all your screenshots needs, to share your love for games graphics.
- !vgmusic@lemmy.world: A community to share your love for video games music
Help and suggestions
By platform
By type
- !AutomationGames@lemmy.zip
- !Incremental_Games@incremental.social
- !LifeSimulation@lemmy.world
- !CityBuilders@sh.itjust.works
- !CozyGames@Lemmy.world
- !CRPG@lemmy.world
- !OtomeGames@ani.social
- !Shmups@lemmus.org
- !VisualNovels@ani.social
By games
- !Baldurs_Gate_3@lemmy.world
- !Cities_Skylines@lemmy.world
- !CassetteBeasts@Lemmy.world
- !Fallout@lemmy.world
- !FinalFantasyXIV@lemmy.world
- !Minecraft@Lemmy.world
- !NoMansSky@lemmy.world
- !Palia@Lemmy.world
- !Pokemon@lemm.ee
- !Skyrim@lemmy.world
- !StardewValley@lemm.ee
- !Subnautica2@Lemmy.world
- !WorkersAndResources@lemmy.world
Language specific
- !JeuxVideo@jlai.lu: French
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Their entire profit margin is pushing gambling on children
I mean, they get a sizable cut from the majority of games sold on PC. I think that's their business model.
I hear you about loot boxes and skins and stuff. It's just, that has to be a small part of their total profit.
Why does it have to be? It's basically free money for them, whereas they have to make deals and curate their store front a lot more. Games take time and energy (if you don't just want AI generated slop, at least), so to get that to market takes time. Whereas microtransaction garbage is basically hit it and quit it and generates insane amounts of money.
Um, no?
I guess this must be surprising to hear, but it's just easier to sell content of actual value than bullshit. Yeah... some people will buy bullshit, and yeah, one can take advantage of those people, but having actual products is still a better business model.
But hey, if you've got these things all figured out, totally start your own game studio/global digital distribution system. Go make bank on microtransaction garbage.
Sorry, clearly you are far more knowledgeable about such things, despite having nothing more than I do to back it up. I apologize for contradicting your opinion on the internet, that was my bad.
Hey, if I've offended you, I do apologize for that, it truly wasn't my goal. But I do strongly disagree (which is allowed).
And I think it's pretty obvious that microtransactions could never, ever, possibly be more lucrative for Valve than selling games. It's just a numbers thing. I mean, dlc can sometimes make more money than game sales for some titles, that's a fact. But Valve has what, a dozen games that they could potentially sell dlc for? That's a pretty hard limit. Whereas they also make money on every title sold in the store, and there are currently over 10,000 titles available from the steam store. That's just like, a lot more than a dozen...
Any data to back that claim? I thought most of their income is from Steam and games(including those with pushing gambling on children) is a very small share.
Obviously given valve is private we don’t have first party numbers but estimates of case openings alone are in the multi billions. https://www.dexerto.com/counter-strike-2/valve-made-insane-amount-of-money-from-cs2-cases-just-last-month-alone-3176876/
Given that valve has about 350 employees that’s on the order of $5M per employee just from case openings alone. Given that they also take a cut of every transaction and trade that number is possibly orders of magnitude higher. And that’s just CS.
Now if you take the leaked financial slides at face value (https://www.simplymac.com/games/3-5m-per-employee-how-valve-quietly-became-the-most-profitable-gaming-company) you’re not looking at the majority of income but skins are almost entirely profit, there’s next to no overhead on generating a fake item.
In conclusion, without publicly released figures it’s impossible to say with certainty and my statement obviously involves hyperbole to some degree but in all likelihood a very significant portion of valves profit comes from pushing gambling in their first party games and on the marketplace.
Side note: in my view, $2.50 earned from pushing gambling on a minor does more societal damage than $100 of predatory sales transaction cuts